Strategies offered to help capture value from ‘Big Data’

Leading Iowa farm organizations, agribusinesses, state government and Iowa State University have developed comprehensive action steps to help harness the power of agricultural data to the benefit of farmers.

“The Digital Transformation of Row Crop Agriculture” report, developed by The Hale Group at the direction of Iowa AgState (Agricultural Strategic Thinkers Acting Together Effectively), provides a roadmap for how agricultural data can be protected and used to boost farmer productivity, efficiency and profitability.

Key recommendations resulting from the 10-month study include:

Provide continuous, ongoing education for farmers, ag retailers and policy makers about the issue and its implications to expedite informed decision making;

Create an independent, farmer-controlled data warehouse for farm level data and aggregated agronomic data that can be used to better serve farmer participants; and

Continuously assess products, services, and business models in the market while promoting uniform, agreed-upon industry standards and guidelines pertaining to farmer data.

The report also recommends obtaining additional input from farmers on the digital information products and services that best serve their needs and creating a center for inter-disciplinary research that positions Iowa farmers to be at the cutting edge of digital technology for generations to come.

“It’s about optimizing farmer productivity, profitability and sustainability,” said Brian Kemp, AgState immediate past chair and grain farmer from Sibley, Iowa. “Digital transformations will create structural change in agriculture. Farmers are still able to help shape these outcomes and this report provides direction.”

Dean Lemke, nutrient management and environmental stewardship director of the Agribusiness Association of Iowa and AgState member, said the project complements other regional and national projects focused on similar concerns and opportunities.

“With this report in hand, we will now pivot quickly to include national organizations and other state organizations,” he said. “This is the beginning of exciting developments that will serve farmers and the greater industry. As a national agricultural leader, Iowa has a unique role to provide key insight.”

The report, posted online by many AgState partners, focused on four major topics: technology, business models, policy and farmer education. It approached the issue from the perspective of Iowa row crop farmers with the implication of the findings for other sectors of agriculture also addressed.

“Big Data” is not a new issue for agriculture but the ability to collect, interpret and put it to use is increasing exponentially. Questions by farmers about how the data is being collected and who has rights to it serves as the catalyst for the AgState digital farming project.

“Ultimately, a better understanding and use of data will help farmers continuously improve,” Lemke added. “It will also give them a more authoritative voice that provides leverage in matters that affect their business.”

Kemp agreed, saying it’s about farmers capturing the value of the data they produce without compromising their proprietary information and intellectual property rights.

Big data, as defined by The Hale Group, is both structured and unstructured data whose scale, diversity and complexity require new architecture, techniques, algorithms and analytics to manage and interpret it and extract value and hidden knowledge. Big data is a key element in the new industry of Digital Agriculture which is built on the collection, use, coordination, and analysis of data from a multiplicity of sources with the goal of optimizing productivity, profitability and sustainability of farming operations.

Recently, a national coalition of major farm organizations and ag technology providers announced an agreement on data privacy and security principles which focuses on priority issues for farmers, including Big Data ownership, transparency, portability and data availability.

AgState is committed to exploring potential questions related to the use of Big Data on behalf the respective constituencies it represents while working closely with national partners to serve farmers.